Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments and questions. I just want to say that when it comes to the budget that just came down for security, I was informed of some things and I will give you an example. We need more RCMP officers. As I have stated, my riding is a port city but there is also a port in Belledune in the centre of my province and another in the northern part of the province. We needed more RCMP officers because of the cutbacks over the years.
I want to ask the hon. member if he knows how many RCMP officers were hired with the money that was put back. Does he know how many officers the RCMP was able to hire? One. Does he know why? Because they have cut back on all the equipment that they needed to do their jobs. Everything was outdated, so they took the money that the government put in the budget for hiring more men in uniform for the RCMP and put it into equipment. We need a whole lot more.
When it comes to nuclear power plants, we have been informed that terrorists have a list of every city in Canada that has a plant and one of them is mine. President Bush, as I am sure the hon. member knows, just in the past month came out with a policy that said no airplanes will fly over any nuclear power plants in the U.S.A. and no ships will be allowed in the vicinity. Ships will not be allowed to sail by. I was asked what I thought about that kind of policy. I have to say I am really worried and concerned when we look at the nuclear power plant and the fishermen in my riding that are out there earning their living. If we say no ships can sail by, or the nuclear power plant is off to the side, then it will create a major problem for fishermen. Also, the largest and most modern privately owned oil refinery in Canada is in my riding and the largest oil tankers in the world come in. Ships would not be able to sail by. It is a very serious situation.
I sat down with the officers and the CEO at the nuclear power plant in Saint John to talk about security. I want to tell the hon. member it is very important that the government makes sure we get our port police back so that those coming in who are looking at the nuclear power plant cannot even get into the harbour. That is the number one issue. If we keep them out of Canada by not allowing them to enter in the first place then we will have safety and security. That will only happen by putting back our port police and putting more money into the RCMP, local police departments and all our security departments.